Some questions

[ECHood]

Pretty new to the game, and I haven't advanced past a few seasons in some saves, so before I dive too deeply now that I'm a bit comfortable, I had some questions I'm hoping the forum could help me out with. Thanks in advance!

1. Player ratings
I've noticed several of my players' ratings fell from one season to the next. Is this a result of my players actually getting worse, or whoever is scouting how good my players are (my staff?) getting better at scouting? This seems like the kind of thing that wouldn't happen if all things are equal (like the staff being the same, which is what was in place for me), so I'm assuming the latter. Though wouldn't a staff's assessment of a players' rating, if they were initially wrong, only take a couple of practices/games to figure out? It seems strange to me that college players would get worse over the offseason. I get it in an NBA game when aging is a factor. But in this case I've had a 3 star guy and a 2 star guy who were both starters come back the next year as 2.5 and 1.5 worse players. So they got an entire years' worth of experience and still got worse.

2. Staff ratings
Do they have the potential to improve from year to year with experience? I assume they do, but I haven't seen it yet. I've only seen myself go from 1 star to 2 stars in a category, but not my assistants.

3. Staff hiring
If I fire an assistant coach yet (I haven't done it yet because I wasn't sure what would happen), how exactly will it affect my budget? If he was making $35,000 for two more years would I lose $70,000 from my remaining budget including recruiting expenses? Plus then I'd have to pay for the new assistant's salary?

4. Recruiting Regions
I'm coaching a team in North Carolina. I'm in the Atlantic East region recruit pool, but there are adjacent nearby states in the Southeast Region so I look there too. Are recruits in my region still more likely to sign with me even though they are farther away? Like, will a guy from Maine show interest in my school before a guy from South Carolina? Is location within a region a factor? Like, will a South Carolina player have more interest, generally, than someone from Florida? Or Virginia over New York?

5. Scholarships and Budget
I'm in a season where I successfully recruited 3 players early with 3 scholarships available. Now, I have a big chunk of money left over to recruit with and no one to recruit. Should I still use it all? Does it matter? Should I still recruit backup plans in case an SAT score is really bad?

6. Tournament upsets
In the first three NCAA tournaments I simmed, a 16 upset a 1, a 16 upset a 1 the next year, then a 15 upset a 2 in the next one. Is this incredibly fluky stuff on my end or is this par for the course for this game?

[PointGuard]

1. It’s primarily due to coaching error, although maybe rarely a player just won’t pan out. The higher rated your coaches the better their assessments.
2.Assistants improve their ratings but very slowly.
3. When I start an association, iskometimes fire and hire on May 1. Otherwise if I want to replace an assistant I do it during the assistant coach hiring week in April. It doesn’t impact your budget adversely in either case.
4. Normally a recruit from within your region will be more interested than a recruit from outside the region even if the state is nearer. Within your region a recruit from a nearby state sometimes will be more interested than one from a long distance within the region,
5. Keep recruiting in case sat for a recruit comes in too low. Also spend all money by the end of the year.
6. Rarely happens ...so a fluke you’ve had so many.

[ECHood]

Thanks for the responses.

Is there a way to keep the AI from putting an injured player in the game during a sim? It seems like when your healthy players get in foul trouble or hurt in-game, the AI can end up putting someone you took out of the rotation due to injury in the game for a minute or more. I just had someone at 48% with a broken arm get playing time.

[Wayne23]

1. The accuracy of your ratings and the ratings of your assistants is heavily influenced by how good they are- check their ratings in the various categories under Staff. Also, does your Practice Plan accurately reflect the offenses and defenses you use? If not, your players will definitely regress. Practice Plan and Strategy must match up and are REALLY important.
2. Yes, slowly.
3. PointGuard's answer is right on.
4. In state students give you the best shot, then those in nearby states, in region or not (Scout costs $650, Host $550, Visit $700). Then the rest of the country. Interestingly enough you may have more luck with both Jucos and foreign players. Other factors can help you. If you're at Harvard and a student rates Academics as first area of importance you might have a shot where you normally would not.
5. Again, see Point Guard's answer. Save some money until after SAT scores come out on 1/29. If you still have all slots filled spend all your money.
6. You may not see this again for a decade or two but statistics can be weird.

[PointGuard]

If you are simming your games (which apparently you are) and are controlling the Depth Chart ("CPU Manage Depth Chart/Sub Matrix" is unselected in the Game Options), put the injured players you don't want to get into games in the 14th or 15th position on the Depth Chart and assign no minutes to them...but if you are letting the AI Manage the Depth Chart, it should move players with major injuries down and they shouldn't play, but if it's a minor injury the Ai will probably play them...at least some.